Climate change is already affecting the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Commission is urging the Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces through an “Action Plan for a Resilient Great Lakes Basin” to coordinate their efforts to make the Great Lakes basin more resilient to those changes. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-climate
Both Michigan and the wider Great Lakes and St. Lawrence binational region could become a world leader in the high-quality, voluntary carbon offset market to the possible tune of $783 billion in revenues by 2050, according to new research from the University of Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-carbon-offsets
The Great Lakes region is in the early stages of knitting together economic development, transportation, and environmental improvement programs in a way that could leverage more federal investment and foster networking between academic and private-industry researchers under the proposed Great Lakes Authority. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-great-lakes-authority
A newly formed coalition called Great Lakes Clean Hydrogen in the Toledo area has been chosen to proceed in a national competition to become one of the Biden Administration and U.S. Department of Energy’s first “Hydrogen Hubs.” Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-hydrogen
A coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous quarry opponents on Lake Huron is trying to stop a quarry that could harm endangered Blanding’s turtles. It’s one example of a wider provincial dispute over aggregate extraction in Ontario. Read the full story by The Narwhal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-turtle-quarry
City of Hamilton, ON officials have announced that roughly 59 million litres of sewage had flowed from 11 Hamilton homes near Rutherford Avenue and Myrtle Avenue straight into Lake Ontario since 1996. A separate 337-million-litre sewage spill was discovered in late November. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-wastewater
A helicopter crew from the Coast Guard’s Air Station Traverse City recently worked with an Aids to Navigation Team from Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste Marie to get things working again at two lighthouses approximately 20 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge: the Grays Reef Light and the White Shoal Light. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-lighthouse-repairs
Anglers will soon benefit from the 624,205 fish, which collectively weighed 7.8 tons, that were stocked by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources at 85 locations across the state. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-fish-stocking
NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory keeps track of the ice cover percentage each day and has built a database of average ice cover, record high ice cover and record low ice cover. Graphs shared by NOAA displaying current ice cover in contrast to past years over the Great Lakes, show the region is set up for record low ice coverage by mid-January. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-low-ice
Two ground-breaking projects are underway at Illinois Beach State Park. The first will help protect the shoreline from erosion caused by Lake Michigan waves, and the second will inform future decisions about how to blunt the effects of erosion and climate change. Read the full story by River Bender.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230116-erosion
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is to be funded at $368 million, which is $20 million more than the current funding level, for the next fiscal year if the federal $1.7 trillion budget being presented to Congress on December 22 is approved. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-glri-funding
Researchers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory are building a sensor network to measure and detect Lake Huron water chemistry and acidification due to ongoing absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-atmospheric-carbon
This week 3M announced that it will stop the production of PFOS and PFAS compounds by 2025. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a class of toxic fluorochemicals that pose serious health risks and have polluted water supplies, food systems, and other natural environments in the Great Lakes and across the globe. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-3m-pfas
Residents of the Oneida Nation of the Thames in Ontario are being asked to halt all non-essential water usage for the foreseeable future amid a state of emergency that was declared by the community last week. Oneida officials declared a state of emergency on Dec. 15 after an “all-time low” water level was recorded in the community’s water tower, its main source of water. Read the full story by CFPL – London, ON.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-michigan-pfas
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a lawsuit against a paper manufacturing company alleging the company transported waste contaminated with harmful PFAS and PFOS chemicals to a nearby landfill where contaminants spread for more than 20 years. Read the full story by Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-michigan-pfas
The last ocean-going cargo ship, or “saltie,” of the 2022 shipping season is expected to depart Duluth, Minnesota, on its way to Italy on Thursday, Dec. 22, which would tie with 1984, 2016, and 2019 as the latest departure date of an ocean-going vessel in port history. Read the full story by Duluth News-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-last-saltie
Santa took time out of his busy December schedule on Saturday to participate in the Santa Splash to Pick Up Trash at Rockport State Recreation Area located on the northeastern coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Santa and several other divers took to the Lake Huron waters in search of debris, while others picked up litter along the shoreline. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-santa
The headwaters of Wisconsin’s Ahnapee River gained another level of protection through a conservation easement agreement recently donated to Door County Land Trust. The 158-acre property, which will remain privately owned but managed by the Trust, contains surrounding wetlands that slow down water runoff and filter sediments and nutrients before entering the river. Read the full story by Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-headwater-conservation
Long before it ended up as a breakwater in Mississauga, Ontario, the S.S. Ridgetown was originally named the S.S. William E. Corey. The ship was built by the Chicago Shipbuilding Company and launched on June 24, 1905; after surviving storms and being run aground during the 1905 “Mataafa Blow,” it was finally retired in November 1969. Read the full story by Insauga.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-ships
When the winter waves of Lake Michigan are crashing onto Sheboygan’s beaches in 30- and 40-degree weather, the surfers will still be there. While Wisconsin’s so-called “Malibu of the Midwest” is less popular than famed surfing spots in California and Hawaii, the owner of a Sheboygan surf shop says his city, and plenty of others on the Great Lakes, offers a lot to the surfing community. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221221-surfs-up
Shared waters from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Beaufort Sea, through to the Great Lakes will be protected from threats of pollution under the renewed the Canada-United States Joint Marine Pollution Contingency Plan between the Canadian and U.S. Coast Guards. Read the full story by The Welland Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-coast-guards
A first-of-its-kind project has been approved for Lake Erie: six turbines eight miles from the Cleveland shoreline. But it hasn’t come easy. The Allegheny Front presents this episode of “Points North,” a biweekly podcast about the evolving land, water and inhabitants of the Upper Great Lakes produced by Interlochen Public Radio. Read and listen to the full story by The Alleghany Front.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-wind-energy
Michigan regulators say it will take a long time before the state can implement some of the most cutting-edge PFAS disposal methods. That includes one strategy, developed in August by scientists at Northwestern University, which uses a lye solution to destroy the chemical bonds that make the family of compounds so pernicious. Read the full story by Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-pfas-disposal
An Ohio Sea Grant environmental and resource economics professor presented results from a study quantifying the impact of harmful algal blooms and E. coli bacterial outbreaks on Lake Erie eco-tourism. The results indicated that noxious algal blooms and other forms of bacteria cost the state $5.8 million in lost beach tourism revenue alone in 2019. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-beach-tourism
A Genesee County judge has ordered criminal charges dismissed against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in connection with the Flint water crisis. It’s the latest in a spate of dismissals after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in June that Michigan improperly relied on a one-person grand jury to bring charges against Snyder and a host of other officials involved in the crisis. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-flint-charges
The Manitoulin Phragmites Project has been a part of Ontario’s Manitoulin Island for the last seven years, but with some major successes fighting the invasive plants this year. Read the full story by My Espanola Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-manitoulin
The shipping season on the Seaway is once again coming to an end. For the 2022 navigation season, all vessels have been directed by Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway officials to clear the Seaway by 11:59 p.m. on December 20, according to a Seaway notice. The closing period officially began on December 1 and will continue until the last ship has completed its transit. Read the full story by WWTI–TV – Messena, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-seaway
Lake Superior’s water level has moved dramatically in the opposite direction from the other four Great Lakes as it has above average precipitation in November raising its year-average precipitation to a normal range while the other Great Lakes are currently below average over the past year. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-lake-levels
The Erie Canal is currently being drained for its yearly winter maintenance. Each year, the canal is drained through culverts into the tributaries flowing north to Lake Ontario. For the local angler the higher water in areas can mean more fish. Read the full story by Niagara-Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-erie-canal
Three men in Wisconsin’s Kewaunee County are facing state charges for underreporting the amount of manure they spread on a dairy farm and sending pollutants into tributaries that lead to Lake Michigan. Read the full story by Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221212-cafo-pollution
After 22 years of being in a state of largely self-imposed bureaucratic limbo, Ohio has learned that its effort to shift oversight of CAFO-generated manure discharges away from state environmental regulators has been denied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-manure-discharge
The Enbridge Line 5 pipeline was one of few environmental issues to take center stage this campaign season. Despite the outcome of the election, the battle for the pipeline’s future lies mostly in federal courts and international diplomats’ negotiating rooms. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-line-5
For the first time, a genome sequence has been developed for an unfamiliar species of harmful algae that’s been blooming in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-algae
Invasive European water chestnut was first spotted in the Welland River in Ontario in 2020. Staff from the Invasive Species Centre worked this summer to eradicate the invasive plant from the river but warn that the fight isn’t over yet. Read the full story by the Welland Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-invasive-plant
After detection approximately two decades ago, an area of contaminated groundwater in Sturgis Township, Michigan, continues to improve. Three wells in 2021 and four wells in 2022 were replaced, changing out from deep wells to shallow units. Read the full story by the Sturgis Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-pollution
At roughly 60,000 acres, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness is Michigan’s largest state park. It sits on the Lake Superior shoreline and was ranked the “most beautiful” state park in the United States according to a recent study by Travel Lens. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-porkies
In the age of COVID-19, birdwatching has taken off in Northeast Ohio, drawing new, young bird enthusiasts to the hobby. And it doesn’t slow down during winter, when the snowy owl arrives on Lake Erie. Read the full story by Cleveland Magazine.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-snowy-owl
In Alpena, Michigan, special microbial mat systems in Lake Huron sinkholes are helping scientists search for extraterrestrial life. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-sinkholes
Lake-effect snow typically happens in the late fall and early winter when the lakes are ice-free and the water is still relatively warm. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-lake-effect-snow
There’s no plaque that indicates who crafted the wooden model of the U.S. Brig Niagara on display at the Erie County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. An Erie resident hopes to get recognition for her grandfather who made the model in the 1930s. Read the full story by the Erie Times-News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221130-model-ship
The toxic cyanobacterial bloom that’s become a yearly problem in Lake Erie’s western basin was relatively small this year but the bloom has lasted an unusually long time and was still there well into the fall. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-algae-bloom
After 38 years, David G. White II will retire from his job as New York Sea Grant coastal recreation and tourism specialist. After all these years, there are plenty of notable accomplishments to reflect on and celebrate. Read the full story by Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-sea-grant
Three Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in the Great Lakes states won on Election Day with strong backing from environmental groups. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-envionmental-groups
Bells tolled at Mariners’ Church of Detroit on Sunday in memory of sailors who have lost their lives at sea on the Great Lakes. The annual Great Lakes Memorial service was held at the historic church, which sits along the Detroit River in downtown Detroit. Read the full story by the Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-edmund-fitzgerald-ship
To commemorate the 1912 voyage to Chicago by the schooner Rouse Simmons to deliver Christmas trees for needy families The National Museum of the Great Lakes has begun taking both reservations and donation requests for Christmas trees to be delivered to the Toledo waterfront. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-tree-ship
The first Blue-Tech night dedicated to water innovations on Nov. 1 was a success, as presentations of startup companies and research project pitches, as well as several updates from previous pitch contestants, drove the first TCNewTech event focused on “blue economy or water innovation.” Read the full story by The Record-Eagle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-blue-tech
The Wayne County, New York Water and Sewer Authority will receive a $30 million state grant for a new regional wastewater treatment plant as part of nearly $300 million awarded under New York State’s Intermunicipal Grant program. Read the full story by Finger Lake Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-wastewater
Sailing aboard Denali 3, a 46-foot all-carbon vessel, Geoff Paine and his crew earned first place finishes this summer in both the Bayview Mackinac Race and Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac. Read the full story by Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-sailing
In the last 18 months, the port of Oswego in New York State, has invested over $3.5 million in dock upgrades with the investments predicted to double by the end of next year. Read the full story by Oswego County Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-port
Ren Brabanec recounts their experience witnessing a wildfire while hiking on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Read the full story by Northern Express.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20221114-wildfire
